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Gaming laptops such as the Samsung Series 7 Gamer can be a funny old breed. The idea of a portable PC powerful enough to play the latest games certainly appeals. But the reality is often a system that, due to its high-powered components, is bulky, heavy and has an incredibly short battery life.

Suddenly these gaming laptops seem a lot less portable.

They're also pretty expensive, and don't offer the upgradability or overclocking goodness of desktop PC gaming rigs such as the PC Specialist Vortex M59 OC, or the admittedly pricey CyberPower Liquid Xtreme GT. This means that the components inside the laptop need to be decent and future-proof, as well as being able to function well in a confined space.

Upgrading a processor or a graphics chip in a laptop is far more difficult than in a desktop PC, so you need to be sure that the components inside your expensive gaming laptop aren't going to become out of date any time soon.

When it comes to battery life, some recent gaming laptops have managed to avoid the hurdle. The Novatech nSpire 2760 Black Edition offers a pretty decent 222 minutes of juice, but it's still let down by a bulky and unattractive body.

We're open-minded folk, but we've seen far more mediocre gaming laptops than good ones, so a new kid such as the Samsung Series 7 Gamer - aka the Samsung NP700G7A - has a lot to prove. It especially has to impress when it's asking for £1,499 of your well-earned cash in the UK, where it's already on sale. It's reportedly being released in the US this spring, where it will cost $1,799.